Some of us didn’t quite fit in at school growing up.  We were outsiders.  We didn’t fit in with the popular group.  We didn’t fit in anywhere.  If that was you, then you can probably relate to seeing someone that you knew was out of your league.  You were fascinated by this person and wondered what it would be like to get to know them, date them, or start a relationship with them.  But you knew better.  You knew they were out of your league and you didn’t stand a chance.

If any of that rings a bell, then this trope is for you!

Throughout the history of horror, there have always been monsters that seem to be smitten by a beauty that is out of their league.  The ultimate outsiders, possibly not even the same species, yet the lovelorn creature can’t control his passions and unlike us, is willing to risk it all to get to know the object of their crush.

King Kong may have been the first of the monsters to fall for someone out of his class.  But King Kong was a bit different, as he was a king, and Faye Wray was a gift to him; given first; with love blooming later.  But still, he fell hard for her despite their species differentiation.  About 102 stories of hard falling.

This trope has been a crucial trope of horror ever since, especially in the older days of horror but still finding its way into modern day horror on rare occasion.  Perhaps one of the most well-known examples of this trope was the Gill-man from The Creature of the Black Lagoon (1954) fame, who fell hard for first Julie Adams and then later for Lori Nelson in the sequel (1955).  He also paid dearly for his transgressions into mixed species coupling. (A reflection of the times perhaps?) It was the Gill-man and his unrequited love who inspired Del Toro’s award winning The Shape of Water (2017).  De Toro watched this movie as a child and thought the outsider/monster should get the girl in the end.  Thus, he reimagined that story for his movie.

Other examples of movies with this trope would be, Robot Monster (1953), the Hunchback of Notre Dame (1911, 23, 39, 56 etc.), and the Mummy (1932) to name a few.  Why was this such a common trope?  Most likely it made life easier on the writer, giving the monster a more direct reason to interact with the “heroes” of the movie.  It also clearly gave the heroes a damsel-in distress to rescue; clearly delineating for the viewer who was truly a hero and who was too cowardly to try and rescue her.  So, in addition to creating a threat to the female of the movie and cranking up the tension, it also helped the viewer buy into the story, give a reason for continued interaction with the monster, and lay out the characters roles easily and without a lot of work by the screenwriter.  It also gave the viewers a chance to sympathize with the monster; to put ourself in its shoes.  After all, we as the viewer see the beauty in the female lead, so in that way, we are like the monster, and we feel for him.  He has become more human to us, which is why in the case of many of these monsters we are sad when they die despite the damage they may have done.  They are less monstrous to us and more just misunderstood and unwanted.  We feel for the Gill-man when he dies, despite the number of people he may have killed earlier in the movies.  The same for King Kong, despite the fact he clearly had many sacrifices of native women before Anne Darrow arrived.  But we have now bought int to their “romantic” side, and can be more sympathetic. That’s a lot of leg work for what we may consider a simple trope. 

Another reason the trope was so intriguing to the fans is that it played on the idea of forbidden love, popular throughout time in fairy tales and folklore.  The idea of “prince charming” carrying off the peasant girl or two young lovers from different social groups or clans such as in Romeo & Juliet have always been a strong draw.  There is also the inner desire of many viewers to believe that love is not skin deep; that someone will see us for who we truly are and not our looks or inadequacies.  This may be why we have seen more movies that play off this trope and allow the monster to get the girl in more recent years.  As a culture, at least in most places, we have become more tolerant of those that are different from us and movies want to spread this more hopeful message.  This may be why we see more cases where the monster does get the girl such as in Warm Bodies (2013), Edward Scissorhands (1990) and of course as mentioned, The Shape of water.  Although these movies are rarely played as straight horror. 

If you look closely, most of the true “monster falls for girl” movies are pre-1960s/1970’s.  The trope of the beauty-smitten monster has mostly faded away except as mentioned, when used to have the monster get the girl. Why is this so?  Of course, like any trope, this one may have just been over-used to the point of being worn out.  But there is clearly more than that at work.  For one, it is more common for our monster to be more monstrous and less sympathetic in today’s movies.  For another, it isn’t needed as much.  Many people cheer for the villain even if he has no shred of humanity.   Freddy Kreuger and Jason didn’t need to gather pathos to make millions of fans cheer for them in each movie they appear in.

Perhaps though, the biggest reason for the vanishing of the trope is a change in attitude towards the role of women in society.  Horror movies reflect the changing attitudes of the mainstream as you follow them through the years.  The role of women had changed and following suit, they were no longer used in movies just as a damsel in distress, nor as mere “eye-candy” for the hero to rescue.  Instead, women slowly began taking on more plot centric roles and had stronger personalities.  This change in the demeanor of women gave them more to do than just being an object of fascination for the monster.  And even for a monster, the idea of the woman as just something to swoon over, became outdated.  The monsters too then, had woken up to the sexist attitudes of the previous times, and become more respectful, opting to kill the women ore often now instead of swooning over them.